The Bucks County Writers Workshop
Article Archives #3 2003-04
THE MYSTERY OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT. New analysis of a famously cryptic medieval document suggests that it contains nothing but gibberish. By Gordon Rugg in Scientific American. SURVEY FINDS FEWER NOSES STUCK IN BOOKS. There's been a precipitous downward trend in book consumption by Americans, and a particular decline in reading fiction, poetry, and drama. By Bruce Weber in The New York Times.
RAY BRADBURY. At the age of 84, Bradbury has published a new story collection, The Cat's Pajamas. The legendary novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet was born in Waukegan, Illinois. Ray drew for me the dragon on the left in 1993 and on it writes, "Don, Let's do it again! Ray." I met Bradbury twice for astonishingly revealing interviews about sex and writing, and BOTH can be heard at Wired for Books. These are must-hear, trust me! (Note in the first interview hear gregarius Ray's imitation of film director John Huston, director of Moby Dick, staring Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab, for which Ray wrote the screen play) Ray Bradbury is an American classic.
RICHARD RUSSO, HAPPILY AT HOME IN WINESBURG EAST. Novelist focuses on life in small-town America. By Bruce Weber in The New York Times. 
THE AMBROSE BIERCE SITE. Bierce's birthday has come and gone -- but not the mystery over his disappearance in Mexico in 1914. I've posted a new theory about Bierce's death and where he might be buried. It's all hypothetical, but worth thinking about. A retired priest is so certain where Bierce is buried that the former cleric has posted a tombstone on the site. IS DALE PECK GETTING SOME OF HIS OWN? Would-be novelist Dale Peck has savaged some of the great modern writers, but has he gone too far in his latest book, Hatchet Jobs? By Daniel Mendelsohn in The New York Review of Books. NATIONAL REVIEW FOUNDER TO LEAVE STAGE. Conservative pundit and novelist William F. Buckley bows out. By David D. Kirkpatrick in The New York Times. TRAVELING WITH TWAIN IN AN AGE OF SIMULATIONS. Rereading and reliving The Innocents Abroad. By Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom in Common-Place. WRITERS BLOCK. Coleridge was tormented by it, Valery took 20 years off, Rimbaud just gave up. What happens to writers when words won't come? By Joan Acocella in The New Yorker. BAD COMMA. A best-selling book on writing rules is riddled with punctuation errors. Louis Menand in The New Yorker thinks the book may be a hoax. DISSENT GREETS ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER CENTENNIAL. Not everyone celebrates the Yiddish author, winner of the Nobel Prize. By Alana Newhouse in The New York Times. NOW CHRONICLING SCIENCE FICTION. A museum of science-fiction opens in Seattle. By Kenneth Chang in The New York Times. AA's BIG BOOK ON THE AUCTION BLOCK. Scholars concerned about the upcoming sale of the book that launched Alcoholics Anonymous. By Felicia R. Lee in The New York Times.
GARRISON KEILLOR: AND THE TERRIBLE THINGS RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE CAN DO ...
Photo: Garrison Keillor & Don Swaim 6/12/04Keillor, novelist and former New Yorker staff writer, is host of PRI's "A Prairie Home Companion."
From Garrison Keillor's radio monologue on 6/12/04: Nowadays we're cold-stone sober, cold-stone sober. Lord help us. And the terrible things righteous people can do. God knows, God knows, friends. People without a shred of self doubt. A person without any doubts is a monster. I'm horrified. I'm horrified at the thought that the torture of prisoners is American policy. Just terribly horrified. Say I'm wrong. I hope to be wrong. But I would hate to see enlisted men and women being made scapegoats in order to protect policy-makers. America doesn't stand for torture. It's not who we are. America is a refuge for people who suffer from torture and oppression. If we practice it ourselves what plan does God have for us? You think about all these things, looking down at the graduates of Lake Wobegon High School. Wishing the best for them, how can you not be romantic for them? How could you not? How could you not want to give them the good, sweet country that was given to us? We have a long way to go. -- Hear Don Swaim's interviews with Keillor at Wired for Books.
FOR BUDDING AUTHORS, A RAPID-FIRE PUBLISHER. A New Jersey bookstore will print your manuscript into a perfect-bound paperback in as little as 17 minutes! By Eric A. Taub in The New York Times. WILLIAM MANCHESTER, DEAD AT 82. Some of you may be interested in hearing Don Swaim's 30-minute interview with historian and biographer Manchester, recorded in 1980. In it, Manchester talks about his World War II combat experience. Go to Wired for Books. NEW YORKER FICTION, BY THE NUMBERS. A Princeton student has done a statistical analysis on just what The New Yorker, the nation's most prestigious literary magazine, publishes in terms of short fiction. By David Carr in The New York Times. MALCOLM BOSSE REVISITED. Some may recall the novels of the late Malcolm Bosse -- twenty-two of them -- including his best-known, The Warlord. Recently, I spotted an early novel of Malcolm's at a used bookstore in Lambertville, NJ, which inspired me to post a short appreciation. Malcolm's last wife writes to Wired for Books: "Hi, I am Malcolm Bosse's widow (third wife) and just wanted to thank Don Swaim for the nice write up that I recently found on the web about their adventures together. Please pass along my thanks and best wishes to Don, on Malcolm's behalf. Lori Mack Bosse" BOOKSTORE OWNER'S LABOR OF LOVE IS RECIPROCATED. Beverley Potter's The Title Page bookstore in Rosemont, PA (near Bryn Mawr, Delaware County), is a haven for those seeking rare and used books. by Wendy Walker in The Philadelphia Inquirer. THE I's HAVE IT. At 72, John Updike Still Hasn't Run Out Of Things to Write About. By Linton Weeks in The Washington Post. Hear Don Swaim's own interview with Updike at Wired for Books. PUTTING REGION IN YOUR FICTION. Advice from Seattle about distilling the essence of region in a novel. (Apply the tips to your own part of the country.) By Ryan Boudinot at thestranger.com. TWO BOYHOOD FRIENDS INVENT BEST SELLER FROM RENAISSANCE TALE. A book printed in Venice in 1499 is so irreducible no one knows completely what it's about or even who wrote it. But two young pals have published a novel that "solves" the puzzle. By Dinitia Smith in The New York Times. BUSH SUPPORTERS DISRUPT COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS BY E.L. DOCTOROW. Celebrated author of Ragtime booed for criticizing Bush. One Bush backer said, "In Florida we would have taken him (Doctorow) out ..." By Bart Jones in New York Newsday. Listen to Don Swaim's interview with Doctorow at Wired for Books. JOURNALISTIC COURAGE. George W. Bush calls Seymour Hersh a liar (look who's talkin'), but the muckraking reporter continues to score scoops and embarrass the politicians with stories such as the atrocities committed by Bush's military at Abu Ghraib. By David Carr in The New York Times. DARK DAYS IN NEW ORLEANS AS ANNE RICE GOES SUBURBAN. Rice has moved to the suburbs and put her Garden District home, a near-sacred site to her fans, on the market for $3.75 million. By Andrew Jacobs in The New York Times. Listen to Don Swaim's interview with Anne Rice at Wired for Books. DIVORCE THAT BOOK!. Why subject yourself to an irksome book when so many sublime ones are available? By Laura Miller in The New York Times. SEARCHING FOR EARLY AMERICAN EROTICA. So you thought our long ago ancestors weren't sexy in words or art? Think again. By Karen A. Sherry in Common-Place. Note: This article is based on Sherry's research at Delaware's Winterhur Museum, Garden, and Library. Warning: this site contains sexually explicit images. SIGNATURE COLLECTION. OK, you wrote a book, but how many times can you stand to write your name? By Lawrence Block in The Village Voice. Listen to Don Swaim's interview with Lawrence Block in RealAudio at Wired for Books. BUTTERFLIES & OTHER BITS OF NABOKOV'S LIFE DISPERSED. The memorabilia collection of the author of Lolita is being sold by his son, Dimitri. By Lila Azam Zanganeh in The New York Times. Listen to Don Swaim's interview with Dimitri Nabokov at Wired for Books. PHILADELPHIA STORIES. Fiction, poetry,essays by Delaware Valley area writers. Distributed free at area bookstores and cafes. An online version to start in September. Note the guidlines relative to formatting and proofing. Same as ours!. WILLIAM FAULKNER ON HORSEBACK. The great author had some eccentric habits -- and never read his mail except to see if it had a check inside. By Javier Marias in The Threepenny Review. PATRICIA HIGHSMITH IS HOT. Once belittled as a "dime-store Dostoyevsky," she's now being canonized as a major American artist. By Leonard Cassuto in The Chronicle Review. And listen to Don Swaim's interview with Highsmith at Wired for Books NEW LOLITA SCANDAL. Did Nabokov lift the plot of his classic novel from a 1916 German story? By Ron Rosenbaum in The New York Observer. HOW DOES WOODWARD DO IT?. Research is almost as important for a fiction writer as for a non-fiction writer, such as the Washington Post's Bob Woodward. How does he get the access -- and can we learn from his success? By Danna Harman in The Christian Science Monitor. Yet Woodward's techniques are criticized in this article by Harry Levins in THE KANSAS CITY STAR
